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Rh sock in which the bar was wrapped with which your father was struck?"

"It was you, then, who took the sock from my bag?" Eaton demanded.

"It was the conductor, and I can assure you, Mr. Eaton-Hillward, that we are preserving it very carefully along with the one which was found in the snow."

"But the socks were not exactly the same, were they?" Harriet Santoine asked.

Avery made a vexed gesture, and turned to Connery. "Tell her the rest of it," he directed.

Connery, who had remained standing back of the two chairs, moved slightly forward. His responsibility in connection with the crime that had been carried out on his train had weighed heavily on the conductor; he was worn and nervous.

"Where shall I begin?" he asked of Avery; he was looking not at the girl but at Eaton.

"At the beginning," Avery directed.

"Mr. Eaton, when you came to this train, the gateman at Seattle called my attention to you," Connery began. "I didn't attach enough importance, I see now, to what he said; I ought to have watched you closer and from the first. Old Sammy has recognized men with criminal records time and time again. He's got seven rewards out of it."

Eaton felt his pulses close with a shock. "He recognized me?" he asked quietly.

"No, he didn't; he couldn't place you," Connery granted. "He couldn't tell whether you were somebody that was 'wanted' or some one well known—some one famous, maybe; but I ought to have kept my eye on you because of that, from the very start. Now this